It is a particularly unexceptional day. The weather’s sultry as always, with the promise of rain looming in the horizon, like the sky hasn’t made up its mind yet. The crickets, for some reason known best to them, have started singing choruses for the last few weeks, in broad daylight too, making me feel weirdly out of place – like I should have been in a holiday resort somewhere, where my windows would open to a thick forest instead of my condo here. Things are crawling back to normalcy, Covid-wise that is, after over two years of stringent rules and regulations, and constant anxiety. But to be honest, two years later, it doesn’t feel like victory. It just feels like yet another change to get adapted to. We are no longer required to wear masks when outdoors, but everyone’s still wearing them. Half the time, I forget that I am outdoors and am allowed to take off my mask. The other half I wonder if I would stand out because everyone else is still wearing theirs. My notes on Psychological Theories – our current module in my PG Diploma course – stare at me accusingly. I am supposed to be adding notes, learning stuff, doing something – anything besides lamenting the fact that I am not home for yet another Bihu.
April had always been my favourite month, after August of course, because apparently just because I have grown old doesn’t mean I have stopped being excited about my birthday. After I got married, April gave me yet another reason to love it – my husband’s birthday. Two years ago, when we had our littler one, April was bumped up to favourite month. Two birthdays in the family in one month, how does one beat that? As a child, I would count down the days till Bihu, which was smack dab in the middle of the month. Crisp new clothes, cultural events to attend, the long Easter/Bihu holiday to look forward to – what more could a girl ask for? Just the other day, when the elder one lamented that she had outgrown all her ethnic Indian outfits, I nudged her. “Go ask Babu,” I said, “Tell him to take you Bihu shopping for new clothes.” Because bihu bojaar is an event in itself, all of us went to pick out new clothes for the girls. On the way in the cab, I tried sharing the significance of bihu bojaar with the elder one. “We wouldn’t get new clothes all the time, you know,” I said, “We’d get two dresses a year – one for Bihu and one for our birthday.” No wonder it was one of the highlights of the year. She didn’t quite get it, but I didn’t expect her to. She’s used to her father, her Babu, getting her outfits anytime he sees something on sale, or something particularly “cute” (that my husband is capable of using the word with abandon is a miracle in itself) In the end we did have a lot of fun picking out their new clothes. The littler one was specially happy, dancing around the store, stopping in front of each mirror she saw to admire her reflection. As for me, what I’d really wanted was a new pair of mekhela sador for Bihu morning, but since that was a far-fetched ask, I settled for the next best thing – a new sari. Only it turned out that I can’t wear it until I take it to the tailor to get some cutting and stitching done, so there goes my plan of wearing something new for Bihu.
The last time I spent Bihu in Assam was nearly six years ago, and I remember demanding new clothes from my in-laws, claiming that it was my first Bihu at home after our wedding. My father-in-law happily gave in to my demands, taking me to the store so I could pick out a paator mekhela sador. The husband was traveling on the eve of Bihu from Dubai, and we were meeting after two months of being away from each other. I was probably the happiest woman on earth that Bihu.
My Ma sends me pictures of the orchids that have taken over her garden – whole bunches of them swinging gracefully from a branch. As a child, I remember that one lone kopou that would bloom belatedly. Bihu would have come and gone, all other kopou flowers would have withered – that’s when ours would slowly start blooming. Ma would bring the flower pot – because it hadn’t been transferred to a tree back then – inside the living room where it would be displayed with pride. That one lone bloom would make the entire living room smell of Bihu for a whole month, when it would also finally wither, until next year. Now though, she’s got company, that lone bloom of ours. A few years ago, my Aita painstakingly shifted the kopou from the flower pot to a branch of the mango tree in our yard, and since then, it has not just survived but thrived. This year, my Ma reports, one of them bloomed prematurely. “No sign of the others,” Ma texted me, “This impatient diva wants all of the attention to herself. Look at her blooming all by herself.”
My parents are busy people, especially after retirement. I called them this morning, just to confirm that today isn’t the new year. Today is actually goru Bihu, the day farmers would bathe and feed their cows, and it has been a running joke in our family. Deuta would wake up in the morning and say to us, “Come out you two, let’s give you a bath.” When I tell them I would call them tomorrow so the girls can show off their new clothes, Deuta says, “Don’t call in the morning. We have a Bihu meeting to attend. And then in the afternoon, another one.” Meanwhile, this woman I call my younger sister calls me on video to wish me a happy Bihu – her first after her wedding last year – and she looks like the daughter-in-law from Bezbaruah’s stories, adjusting her red bindi. Her gold bangles glint just so, as she fixes her hair. She looks like a vision. And just like that, my heart is a puddle of mush that settles somewhere in the pit of my stomach. I am homesick. I am sick of being away from my home.
Maybe tomorrow will be different. Maybe I will wake up and dress the girls in their new outfits and find an old mekhela sador to wear to greet the new year. Maybe tomorrow when I go outside the air will feel different, like it used to on Bihu mornings back home. Maybe I will sing a few verses, teach the little ones a few steps of Bihu. Maybe when I call everyone to wish them a happy new year, it will feel like a special day, who knows. For today, I indulge this melancholy. I sit with it – it is an old friend after all. I tell my melancholy that we’ve been through this before and we will go through it again. There’s always next year, I suppose.
Of dreaming, dabbling and daring... 